This invention relates to door closures and more particularly to hardware for a by-pass type sliding door construction.
Various forms of sliding door or by-pass door constructions have been proposed. These doors include a pair of rectangular panels which are mounted in a doorway for sliding movement relative to each other. The hardware for such by-pass doors typically includes upper and lower trim members and side stile members, each of the members being adapted to receive an edge of the rigid panel to thereby frame the panel. Corner brackets, either by fasteners or by slots and connecting lugs or tang arrangements, are connected to the trim and stile members. The corner brackets help in rigidifying the door construction and connect the stiles and trim members. In a typical top roller by-pass door, the upper corner brackets will carry screw adjustable roller assemblies. The roller assemblies include rollers which ride within an upper track secured to the door header. The lower brackets carry guide members which are adapted to ride within a lower track so as to guide the doors and to prevent inadvertent removal of the doors from the tracks.
When the rectangular panel framed by the stile and trim members is of a relatively heavy construction such as when the rectangular panel is a mirrored panel, bottom roller configurations are preferred since they are better able to support the increased weight. For these latter arrangements, the positioning of the rollers and the guides is usually reversed.
Examples of such previous by-pass or sliding door constructions may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,879,912, entitled HARDWARE FOR A SLIDING DOOR INSTALLATION, issued Apr. 29, 1975, to Cox; U.S. Pat. No. 3,750,337, entitled SLIDING DOOR CORNER CONNECTOR, issued Aug. 7, 1973 to Brydolf et al; U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,071, entitled PANEL FRAME ASSEMBLY, issued Mar. 21, 1972 to Tanner; U.S. Pat. No. 3,562,956, entitled SLIDING DOOR FRAME, issued Feb. 16, 1971 to Johnson, Jr.; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,261,129, entitled PANEL HARDWARE, issued July 19, 1966 to Brydolf et al.
The prior art arrangements exemplified by these aforementioned patents typically employ fasteners to secure the stiles, the trim members and the corner brackets to each other and to the panels, or in the alternative, they employ slots and cooperating lugs or tangs on the brackets and/or stile or trim members to interconnect the sliding door hardware. The constructions noted above employing lugs and slots present difficulty in adapting the hardware to doors of varying sizes. Individuals installing doors of this type by themselves without the help of professional installers have problems adapting the doors and installing them in non-standard openings. The particular size door opening may not be dimensioned in accordance with the standard stile and trim member dimensions offered by a manufacturer. In such instances, snap together sliding door hardware employing slots and lug or tab interconnections must be reworked with new slots formed in the members. Such reworking is not always easily accomplished and requires special tools normally not available to the installer, particularly the do-it-yourself installer.
It is highly desirable for the sliding door hardware to readily adapt to and frame panels of varying thickness. The sliding door installations should be readily and easily adjusted between the upper and lower tracks to insure proper operation without the need for using hand tools. The stile and trim members besides serving to frame the panel and support the corner brackets should also substantially increase the rigidity of the panel and overall door construction from that provided by the panel alone.
A need exists for a by-pass door assembly employing completely snap together hardware readily modified for doors of smaller dimension than that provided by the standard size stile and trim members, which is easily manufactured, which is aesthetically pleasing and which is readily and easily adjusted for proper operation without the use of hand tools.